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Doctor in Haiti: Wounded children calling for missing parents

Louisiana doctor helping in Haiti: One tough thing is seeing new orphans

Dr. Elizabeth Bellino was supposed to be in Africa this week

She delayed Africa plans after Haiti earthquake happened

Field hospitals need more supplies, she says

Port-au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Pediatrician Elizabeth Bellino was supposed to start work in Africa this week. Instead, she found herself trying to save lives Wednesday at a field hospital in Haiti's capital.

She wishes she had more painkillers and antibiotics, and she wishes some parents would do what's best for their children.

"We're seeing a lot of kids getting amputated," Bellino said. "We've also seen a lot of refusals from parents, and they left.

"So those kids will probably die."

She'd seen three cases of parents walking out with their children in the past 24 hours, Bellino said late Wednesday afternoon.

"It's been intense, sad," the doctor said. "We've seen a lot of kids calling for their moms and dads, and we don't know where they are.

"It's heartbreaking."

Her week was supposed to start very differently. Bellino, a physician at the Tulane Hospital for Children in New Orleans, Louisiana, was scheduled to fly Monday to Uganda, where she was to start a six-month fellowship as the staff pediatrician at Mutolere Hospital.

But she got a call Friday from doctors at the University of Miami asking if she wanted to join them in Port-au-Prince, where a 7.0-magnitude earthquake January 12 had caused widespread devastation.

She's been working at two large tent-like structures at the United Nations compound near the airport. More than 200 patients are crowded onto cots about a foot apart. Diagnosis and treatment are noted on homemade charts drawn on lined school paper.

Nearly all of the patients were injured in last week's temblor, though a few recent arrivals had suffered wounds in a 5.9 magnitude aftershock Wednesday morning.

Many of the patients sustained crushing injuries to arms and legs, breaking bones and causing deep gashes. Bellino is also seeing many infections in wounds that have not been treated in up to a week.